By Harry King
LITTLE ROCK — Florida can’t run on Alabama. Texas can’t run on Nebraska. Therefore, Texas can’t run on Alabama in the national title game next month.
Deduced from the back-to-back conference championship games televised on Saturday, that logic doesn’t hold up because Terrence Cody is not Ndumakong Suh. Cody is a an overweight defensive lineman who can clog up things in the middle for Alabama; Suh is a 300-pound rock that can run. Texas’ offensive line has never looked as inept as it did trying to block Suh and his Nebraska running mate, Jared Crick, in the Big 12 title game.
Before Suh recorded 4 1-2 sacks of Colt McCoy, Crick was the Cornhuskers’ sack leader with nine. Prior to Texas’ 13-12 victory, Texas coach Mack Brown said Suh “is as good a player as there is in college football.” Suh is in the top three on at least one Heisman Trophy ballot.
At the appropriate time, he will praise Alabama’s defense, starting with linebacker Rolando McClain and cornerback Javier Arenas.
The championship game will be decided by McClain and his cronies vs. Tre Newton and quarterback Greg McElroy vs. Texas’ defense.
Newton is the Longhorn other than McCoy who must run the ball for Texas. At least, Texas will not abandon the run as quickly as the Gators did in the Southeastern Conference title game. Other than quarterback Tim Tebow, three Florida players had a total of four carries vs. Alabama, partly because the Gators only snapped the ball 49 times.
All year long, the Florida offense has been pretty much Tebow throwing and running. In Atlanta, Alabama made a mockery of that one-man show and the Crimson Tide will do the same in Pasadena, Calif., if Texas’ offense is McCoy, McCoy, McCoy.
Against Nebraska, the Longhorns saved McCoy from serious injury by handing the ball to Newton 19 times. His average was less than two yards per try, mostly because of Suh and friends. Prior to Nebraska, Newton’s November was 36 carries for 259 yards.
Alabama dismantled the Gators’ defense with Mark Ingram running and McElroy throwing, raising a football version of the question about the chicken and the egg. The sweet balance of 251 yards running and 239 passing produced four touchdowns against a defense that allowed only seven all year.
Some will argue that Texas doesn’t belong in the title game, that the officials bailed out McCoy and Brown who had a Les Miles moment at the end.
Any team that completes a perfect season will have a close call or two. Remember that Cody had to block two field goals, including one on the final play, for Alabama to slip past Tennessee.
Arkansas’ 1964 national championship team, which shut out its last five regular-season opponents and finished 11-0, opened the year with a 14-10 victory over Oklahoma State. The next week, the Razorbacks trailed Tulsa 14-0 before Ronnie Caveness intercepted a pass and returned it for a touchdown in a 31-22 victory.
Alabama coach Nick Saban quickly got his fill of talk that his team should beat Texas. More than once Sunday, he said the Crimson Tide was being “set up.”
“You can’t drink the Kool-Aid by listening to what everybody says is going to happen in a game when nobody really knows what’s going to happen in a game,” he said.
Spoken like a coach who has the best team.
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Harry King is sports columnist for Stephens Media’s Arkansas News Bureau. His e-mail address is hking@arkansasnews.com.
